THE EU IS READY TO ASK FOR THE RENEWING OF THE EXPORT OF CHILDREN FROM

Ziua newspaper Friday July 7, 2006

Prime Minister Tariceanu's international colleagues, Liberal Euro Deputies Claire Gibault and Jean-Marie Cavada, have prepared a petition which could delay Romania's integration into the EU. These two Euro parliamentarians have managed to gather 407 signatures for an initiative in which they ask Romania to abandon the moratorium of Oct. 2001, regarding international adoptions. If this petition is approved, the EU will find itself on the side of the USA which has pressured Romania to lift the moratorium.

Romania risks an unfavorable report on the part of the European Commission this fall which could put in peril Romania's adherence to the European Union on Jan. 1, 2007. The two Euro deputies ask that the Romanian authorities take another look at the refusals to allow 1,000 families to adopt who were caught in the moratorium of Oct. 2001.

The 407 signatures are sufficient that this petition will benefit from a special procedure. In the plenary session of the European Parliament which will be held Sept. 4-7, 2006, this petition will be officially announced by the president of the European legislature, Joseph Borell, after which it will be published in the official record of the EU. The next step after this will be the sending of this declaration to the European Commission, the European Council and the Romanian Government in Bucharest.

With this petition on the table, the European Commission must make a decision whether or not to include it in the monitoring report for Romania. This is a decisive report regarding the adherence of Romania to the European Union in Jan. 2007.

In 2001, Romania found herself between a rock and a hard place regarding the reglementation of international adoptions. The United States has exercised permanent pressure for the continuing of international adoptions while the European Union represented by Baroness Emma Nicholson solicited the stoppage of international adoptions. Following pressure from the European Union, Romania instituted a moratorium on international adoptions in 2001. However, more than 1,000 cases for adoption in which the adoption process had already begun, remained unresolved.

The petition initiated by Liberal Deputies Gibault and Cavada, solicits the reopening of the adoption process for these more than 1,000 cases which remained unresolved. The petition states that the moratorium "brutally interrupted the adoption process of these 1,000 cases" and that "the children involved in these adoption situations have already established bonds with their future adoptive families and the moratorium left them abandoned for a second time". Gibault affirmed that, "It is a great relief that Euro Parliamentarians agreed with our initiative and this initiative sends a powerful signal to the Romanian authorities and to the enlargement commission of the EU. We dedicate this success to the Romanian children who are suffering in their wait for a new family and who have now received a ray of hope."

Numbers of Euro Deputies, however, oppose this petition. They say that to review the decisions regarding these 1,092 children Romania would need to change the legislation and reopen the files for international adoption. Portuguese Socialist Ana Gomes is afraid that this will reopen the trafficking of children which took place before the moratorium.

The French newspaper Le Monde in its Tuesday edition indicated that the Romanian authorities accepted all requests for adoption (1,003) introduced before the entering into force of the moratorium and that they rejected all that were made after that. According to them, these requests concern 1,092 children with which some families have been in contact, a condition which is illegal. The 1,092 files were examined on the basis of the new law which makes international adoptions the last resort, after attempts to reintegrate the child into the biological family, in foster care, or national adoption. Ollie Rehn, the European Commissioner for enlargement declared that he was satisfied saying, "All the files were examined and the families individually informed about the results."

Euro-deputy Gomes said, "A baby costs between 12,000 and 20,000 euros on the unofficial adoption market." She declared that she amazed that non-governmental organizations which were very little known could finance a page in the British newspaper the Financial Times. It is known that a page costs approximately 120,000 euros and this page was used to demand the controlled opening of international adoptions.

BARONESS NICHOLSON IS PRO-ROMANIA

The Financial Times published a letter signed by Baroness Emma Nicholson, former rapporteur for Romania, in which she replied to the announcement which appeared in that newspaper under the title "The Hidden Crisis in the Child Protection System in Romania".

Nicholson wrote, "This advertisement supports the reintroduction of international adoptions in Romania. It was paid for by a group of 33 non-governmental organizations. Some of these have a powerful financial interest in this extremely profitable business of international adoptions." Emma Nicholson affirmed that Romania forbid international adoptions in 2001 "because they represented the diabolical commercialization of children in which adoptive parents were dragged along by adoption agencies without scruples. The children were selected illegally on the basis of photo presentations and videos, while social services were evaded. The pro adoption lobby has continued to spread false information concerning the number of abandoned children in Romania."